Telling Women's Lives

Molly Grace Entrepreneur Profile By Hannah Lafferrandre

“Is this the chocolate shop?” a lost shopper asked as she poked her head through the doors of a boutique in downtown Winston-Salem. Founder and owner of Kleur, Molly Grace, erupted in laughter, replying “I wish!”

Grace, an artist, mother, activist and entrepreneur, opened up shop in September, 2016 on Trade Street, right next to Black Mountain Chocolate. In a space flooded with natural light, handmade home goods, accessories, jewelry and clothing are thoughtfully dispersed on racks and tables for sale. Kleur also offers workshops and seminars in the comfy back room of the shop.

But Grace is also an advocate for human rights of all kinds. Most recently, she has spoken up against the recent billboards on Interstate 40 between Greensboro and Winston-Salem. The first of these reads “Real men provide, Real women appreciate it” and the most recent displays “Real men don’t use coupons.” After the first billboard went up in February, Grace organized a protest with a turnout exceeding 100 people. As the issue drags on, news stations continue to ask Grace for comments, especially in reference to the new billboard messages.

“It’s all just a monstrous attempt to shame women,” Grace said. “It’s the same message every time, and I’m tired of responding.”

But for Grace, activism is nothing new. Her dedication to human rights issues plays a large role in her business, as she hosts community discussions as well as artistic craft workshops in the back room of Kleur. These include ‘photographing the birth cycle,’ indigo dyeing, and ‘accessing and activating empathy,’ which Grace teaches.

“Our shop motto is ‘Normalize compassion, normalize kindness, normalize empathy,'” Grace said. “Empathy is always the thing lacking in any human rights issue.”

Unlike most, Grace can remember the exact day she accessed empathy: September 11, 2001. She was a middle school student cutting gym class to sulk under the bleachers, and write “brooding” poetry.” But when she returned to class, she saw footage of the planes colliding with the Twin Towers and became aware of a world outside of herself.

“I realized I wasn’t as important as I thought I was,” Grace said. “I later learned that feeling was empathy.”

Grace is familiar with middle schoolers. She taught them for several years as an English teacher at Paisley IB Middle School and the Arts Based School in Winston-Salem. She hopes to bring her passion for teaching to adults now by offering affordable workshops, none of which exceed $30. With these prices, Grace hopes to present a source of empowerment to people with lower incomes. But these prices also appeal to college students, since Winston-Salem is home to four major colleges and universities.

“We want to offer a space for college students to be in the community,” Grace said. “They’re not just workshops. They can be a life-building practice.”

Grace also wishes to share her love of words by offering free used books to anyone who walks through the door. Books add to the variety of goods the shop offers, such as handmade home goods, accessories, jewelry and clothing.

“We try to support vendors who really take their work seriously and make quality products,” Grace said.

With the multitude of responsibilities that come along with owning her own business, Grace finds the most joy in meeting with vendors, as one artist to another. Grace has dipped her toe in many different art forms over the years, from writing to painting to singing and songwriting. Currently, Grace focuses on music as her artistic outlet. She is part of a duo called Grace and Nails with local musician Tyler Nail.

The pair found each other when Grace opened for him at The Garage, a music venue in downtown Winston-Salem. From there, they covered a Tom Waits song and realized they weren’t done working together. For the past two years, they have been in the process of recording an album of original songs.

“It’s been a very slow process,” Grace said. “We don’t have a lot of time because we both work hard.”

However, the duo has written half a dozen songs and continue to collaborate. Like any partnership, their collaborative process involves give and take, as they push each other to take creative risks.

“Molly has a unique balance of willingness to influence, and willingness to be influenced,” Nail said. “Artists often have such a fear of giving someone else any room to persuade a piece.”

Another partnership in Grace’s life is with her employee and friend Allison Beilharz, who has worked for Grace since October 2016, after Grace parted ways with previous partners and designers Amanda Vaughn-Redmond and Emma Wallace, who had shared a shop with her on 6^th Street. Beilharz contacted Grace about a job, to which Grace replied, “Job? I can’t give you a job. But I can be your friend!” Grace proceeded to connect Beilharz to people in town who could help her, as well as giving her career advice.

The friendship and mutual respect between these two is obvious, as they hollered playful comments to each other across the shop during a recent visit. Beilharz has a background in marketing and branding and uses this expertise to compliment Grace’s aptitude with the creative side of the business.

“Molly has so many ideas jumping around in her head at all times, and then she actually does them,” Beilharz said. “It’s inspiring to be around that kind of energy.”

It’s that energy that allows Grace to balance being a mother to her six-year-old son, Abbott, with activism and creativity, as well as owning and running a business. But she is also quick to credit other entrepreneurs in town who have supported her and her vision, such as Mary Haglund, the owner of Mary’s Gourmet Diner, located across the street from Kleur.

“I’ve gotten to the point where I know a lot of the entrepreneurs in town,” Grace said. “But Mary has been a great source of comfort and advice.”

As Grace looks ahead, she hopes to get more people through her doors to participate in community discussions. Through honest conversations with a varied group of people, Grace believes community is born and sustained. It is this commitment to authenticity that guides the way she runs her life, and therefore, her business.

“Sometimes I’m embarrassed and think ‘This could look better,'” Grace said. “But I value transparency in the real world and I like the messiness of what we do.”

Unfinished Business – Hannah Lafferrandre

I was struck by Anne Marie Slaughter’s call for the elevation of child care as a profession. This idea can be summed up in the quote “We should think about paid care work, from home health service to therapy to teaching, the same way we think about any other profession, including money management.” Slaughter thinks that childcare is just as noble a profession as any other, but in general, that is not the view held by society. If one parent stays at home, and another works, the one that goes to the office is viewed as doing the more important, vital, or taxing work. However, there is a stigma that goes both ways. The mother that stays at home are looked down upon by the working mothers, and the working mothers are regarded as uncaring, bad mothers by the stay at home moms. On a very basic level, there is an issue of women not supporting each other. My mom stayed at home, and although I never saw women regard her with scorn, some of my friends with working mothers asked me “what does she do all day?” I instantly felt the need to embellish her accomplishments and defend her busy schedule. Of course, not all women are like this, and I would argue that this behavior stems from the legacy of society’s disapproval of them throughout history, and the expectation of perfection in appearance, household tasks, child rearing, and now professional accomplishments.

But Slaughter notes that it is not just the stigma that needs adjustment; there needs to be an actual pay increase in care workers because right now they are being paid minimal wages. But if their pay increases, that means that low to middle class women in the work force will not be able to pay for child care. It is in the interest of lower income women to keep the wages of child care workers low. Cynically, I don’t see how this increase in pay is possible. It is much easier for me to grapple with societal reform than economic.

Farmer Jane – Hannah Lafferrandre

From the beginning, I was most interested in the urban farming section of Farmer Jane. Willow Rosenthal was the most outstanding in this section for me because of her unique idea to purchase empty lots, some as small at .08 acres, and create a farm, complete with beehives, carrot crops, chickens, ducks, compost piles and a wood fire oven. She purchased this empty lot in the middle of Oakland, California, which contains several major food deserts. The inequality of access to healthy food is disturbing in these places. The community that Rosenthal targeted, for example, had one grocery store that was intended to supply food to 23,000 people. Conversely, more affluent areas have grocery stores for every 4,000 people. Additionally, the single grocery store has limited produce, it is usually in poor shape and it is more expensive than the unhealthy, processed food. I know that Winston-Salem struggles with this issue, and I think it could desperately use an urban farm. I like the distinction Rosenthal seeks to make between an urban farm and an urban garden. Primarily, Rosenthal wishes to produce a bulk of sustenance crops that can be sold or simply distributed to low income families. She believes a crop of sweet potatoes is more beneficial than planting flowers or herbs. She wants to combat the lack of access families have to fresh produce, and allow them to reimagine their usual diets. Additionally, Rosenthal has started the Backyard Garden Program which equips people with gardening tools and the assistance they need to grow their own food. Rosenthal discovered that many people have the knowledge and skills to grow food but the equipment is expensive, and it is no longer economically advantageous for the grower if she has to purchase tools, etc. The families in this program are also given a mentor, who helps them get their garden started and sees them through a few seasons. This idea is brilliant because it simply ‘teaches a man to fish,’ and allows him to take pride in what he puts in his body.

Allie and Hannah’s Succinct Sentences

2. Tickets raised in price from $15 to $20 last year to $20 to $25 this year.
3. She must be productive every semester of college, but especially the first.
4. Indoor areas on campus are constantly occupied by students on rainy days.
5. The beginning scene of the film helps us later understand the war of two different personalities in Gollum’s head.
6. Marcel’s Café is undistinguished among the many French restaurants in Seattle.
7. In exams, anxious students tend to write long sentences to impress their professors with their bulk.

Reader Response – Hannah Lafferrandre

In reading ‘Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?’, I began to analyze my own academic history in the sciences. Pollack cites many examples of her professors and advisors at Yale not encouraging her to pursue graduate school, much less a PhD program. She thinks that if someone had encouraged her earlier on, she perhaps wouldn’t have locked up her physics books immediately after college. Academic encouragement goes a long way. I remember my kindergarten teacher telling me that I was a good writer; she liked my stories. She told my mom, and reading and writing very soon became my academic identity. I knew if all else failed, I could compose a good sentence. I don’t remember being attracted to math or science in school. I’m not sure if it was because I thought being good at one thing was enough, or because no one praised my work in the sciences as they did in the literary arts. I like to think that I was not completely molded by praise, but it probably played a big part in shaping my academic confidence. I operated out of the mindset that words were conquerable, but numbers were not. I struggled through advanced math and science courses in high school, simply taking them because I thought I had to, never delighting in the work like I did in English or art classes. Now that I am primarily in English classes, I see that they are mostly composed of women. I’ve learned that because literature is not objective, it is not considered as serious as math or science. Therefore, my studies are inferior to math and science.
Examining the way that encouragement shaped me and other women is important because it makes me want to encourage any form of talent that I see. If I ever end up teaching in any capacity, I must remember that words stick with people, whether they are negative or positive.

Hannah Lafferrandre NYTimes Profile: Rachel Sklar

I will write about Rachel Sklar, founder of the TheLi.st which is a visibility and connectivity platform for professional women. She is also involved in leadership seminars and one of the founders of The Huffington Post.

Hannah Lafferrandre Student Profile: Julia Ough

I plan to write a profile about Julia Ough who is involved in Outdoor Pursuits and sustainability on campus.